What Is Therapeutic Coaching?

In recent years, the term therapeutic coaching has started to appear more often. But what does it really mean?

At heart, it’s about bringing greater depth, emotional intelligence, and psychological understanding into the coaching space without becoming therapy. It’s coaching that recognises we don’t leave our histories, patterns, or emotional worlds at the door when we talk about leadership, life choices, or change.

In therapeutic coaching, we work with the whole person. We acknowledge that patterns shaped in earlier life can affect how we show up today in relationships, in leadership, in how we handle pressure or success.

This approach blends insight with action. We look at what drives behaviours beneath the surface. We explore how to meet challenges with more presence and resilience. We develop greater awareness of both the conscious choices and the unconscious patterns that shape our lives.

It is not therapy. We are not seeking to process deep trauma here. But we do allow space for emotion, for relational dynamics, and for understanding the inner landscape that influences outer results.

In my own work, I draw on the principles of Psychosynthesis Coaching, a holistic and integrative approach that works with the whole person. Psychosynthesis recognises that we are shaped not only by our conscious goals, but also by deeper patterns, values, relationships, and unconscious material. It supports clients in exploring what is present, reconnecting with inner resources, and strengthening their sense of self. Through this lens, therapeutic coaching becomes a space where greater awareness, resilience, and relational presence can emerge enabling clients to lead and live with more clarity, purpose, and ease.

And often, it is this deeper inner shift not just more skills or knowledge that enables the most sustainable outer change.